Epistemological Implications of Perceptual Pluralism

Abstract

Perceptual systems that integrate different principles and/or a different architecture at large may produce substantially varied outputs from the same scene. I call this thesis perceptual pluralism and I bring related empirical evidence to bear on the epistemological debate on perception. I argue that perceptual pluralism, coupled with the position that at least some different kinds of perception are equally successful in guiding interaction with the world, serve to undermine the thesis that the typical human perception is uniquely veridical. Last, I consider perspectival realism as the epistemological stance that is prospectively best suited to this state of affairs, and provide a method for evaluating whether this prospect holds up.